DATE just came out with their Q4 earnings and I'm a little disappointed in the slowdown in revenue growth. In Q3 they had RMB90.9 million (US$14.3 million) in sales and forecasted Q4 sales between RMB88 and 90 million. I thought at the time that they were being very conservative because I thought they were in high growth mode. They came in at Q4 with RMB88.6 million and said that the lower sales was a seasonal slow down and forecasted Q1 sales between RMB90 and 92 million. First off, is there really a seasonality to online dating? Secondly, despite the slow Q4, they are forecasting no growth from Q3 last year to Q1 this year. Also, the sequential decrease in paid users is concerning:

The number of average monthly active user accounts(4) for the fourth quarter of 2011 was 5,179,713, compared to 4,403,262 for the corresponding period of 2010 and 5,560,387 for the previous quarter.

The number of average monthly paying user accounts for the fourth quarter of 2011 was 1,172,159, compared to 761,271 for the corresponding period of 2010 and 1,250,439 for the previous quarter.</I)

Even though they doubled their revenue over the full year, DATE seems to have hit a wall, unless they expect growth to pick up again in Q2.